About 10 people, including two children, had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose to a tree and shot with paintball guns as Freeman fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real gunfire, Sheriff Fred Phillips said.

A bullet struck Murr on the top of the head and exited at the bottom of his skull, authorities said.

Freeman fled the ceremony but was arrested near his home, authorities said. He was released on $7,500 bail.

It was my understanding that a bullet falling back to earth didn't have enough velocity to do much damage. Besides the fact, it would fall back tumbling, heavy end first...
Wonders never cease...[rolleyes]

C&R FFL&GLOCK CERTIFIED ARMORER

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools speak because they have to say something.

There was some incident in Phoenix a few years ago, where a bullet shot in the air came down and struck some girl in the head, killing her.
They never found the guy that shot into the air. It's not likely, but it can happen.

Two things make this hard to believe. The likelihood of the bullet landing close is very low and the presence of trees makes it even more magical.
I think under the most ideal circumstances this could have happened, sorta like DNA odds.

When words lose their meaning, a people can move neither hand nor foot. Confucius

Some Info on this subject.
Q. What happens when a bullet is fired straight up?
A. A lot of shooters have wondered what happens when a bullet is fired vertically. Popular lore includes such mis-ideas as the bullet burns up falling back down, it comes down at the same velocity as its original muzzle velocity, and probably one that says it disappears in a time warp.
The two best references on the subject are "Hatcher's Notebook", (by Julian S. Hatcher, 3rd edition, June 1962, Stackpole Books, ISBN: 0811707954) which includes a chapter on bullets fired vertically, and an article titled "Terminal Velocity and Penetration Studies," by Lucien C. Haag, which appeared in Vol 2, No. 1 of Wound Ballistics Review. This information is excerpted from both.
First, it must be understood that recovering vertically fired bullets is difficult because wind causes them to drift from the expected vertical line. (This probably accounts for many of the myths.)
Hatcher's tests indicated that on the average, vertically fired rifle bullets reach about 9000 feet in altitude (slowed from their muzzle velocity by air drag and gravity to zero velocity), taking about 20 seconds to reach maximum height. Then, pulled by gravity, and slowed by air drag they take about 40 or so seconds to return. Bullets fired vertically come back base first. Why? Read on!
Hatcher describes one experiment with the 150gr M2 Ball bullet fired vertically. When it came back from vertical (round trip time was about 42.9 seconds) it left only a 1/16 inch dent in a soft pine board that it happened to hit. (Not exactly what it would do at 2700f/s, eh?) Based upon this and similar tests Hatcher concluded that the impact velocity was about 300 f/s, which from additional testing appears to be the terminal velocity (the maximum free fall velocity which is limited by air drag on the body in question) of that bullet falling from any height in the atmosphere. (If I remember correctly from my limited parachuting experience the terminal velocity of a falling person is somewhere around 130 mph or about 200 f/s.)
What does not substantially change, even at extreme range, is the rotational speed of the bullet that was imparted by the rifling (around 300k rpm) since the effect of air drag on the rotational velocity in negligible. Thus the gyroscopic action, once the projectile is stabilized, tends to keep the bullet oriented in the same direction, thus the base first (well ok, original position trailing end) return. It is interesting that this was not commonly known until just before WWII. The British had lots of dud antiaircraft rounds that all came back base down, or more correctly oriented to the same elevation as shot from the gun. BTW, this is what raises hob with traditional long range small arms ballistics. With lots of elevation on the bore (past 2,000+ or so yards) at the far end the bullet is actually falling sideways and all frontal air drag algorithms are out the window.
Interestingly, Hatcher describes an experiment that shows the gyroscopic stability at work. They loaded the 150gr M2 flat based bullet backwards and found that the round trip time was a bit shorter (about 30.4 seconds) due to the bullet being "streamlined (point down) on the return trip. The drag on the upward trip was not as greatly effected due to the high muzzle velocity. No estimated impact velocity was given but it would have been somewhat higher due to the lower air drag on the bullet since it was coming down point first.
The Haag article used a ballistics computation program to calculate vertically fired bullet performance and came up with results comparable with Hatcher's work. Using bullets ranging from the .22 rim fire to the 180gr .30 caliber spitzer in the .30-06 the time of flight (up & back) ranged from a low of 25 seconds for the .25ACP to a long of 77 seconds for the M193 ball. Maximum altitudes ranged from a low of 2288 feet for the .25ACP to a high of 10,103 feet for the 180gr .30-06. Terminal velocities ranged from 134 f/s for a tumbling .22 Short to a high of 323 f/s for the 180gr .30-06.
Haag calculated the performance of the .30cal 150gr M2 ball round fired by Hatcher as a maximum altitude of 9330 feet and a round trip time of 57 seconds which is, for all intents and purposes, the same as Hatcher's observations.
As a point of interest a velocity of about between 160 and 200 f/s (±) is needed to penetrate skin. However, one could still be seriously injured if struck by a falling bullet.
Those interested in learning more about vertically fired bullets may want to obtain a copies of Hatcher's Notebook and the Haag article.

"The problem is that illegal firearms are more often found among criminals."

A friend of mine worked in a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon. He told me once that injuries from flying bullets are pretty common during celebrations. Rarely fatal, but painful, especially when it happens to children. Most of the locals always stay inside when they hear full auto shooting. I suppose the news just doesn't report "the rest of the story".
-Gator

Back on Dec 31st, 1990, a buddy and I were sitting in my truck talking to these girls.
I heard a loud thud, like someone had slammed their fist on my truck.I thought "wtf?" Nobody, but my buddy and I and these two girls, who were in their car were out in the middle of nowhere.
I got out of the truck, checked out my hood and sure enough there was a .22 slug that had almost penetrated the hood. So, I figured it came tumbling down;kinda like a wounded bird, but enough elevation on it to get high enough to come down at a fairly decent velocity.I saved that slug for the longest time, but lost it somehwere along the line.
We were out on some dirt road, pretty much the boonies so that bullet must've travelled fairly far to of have come down that hard.It wasn't us doing the shooting and I did not hear a gun going off anywhere close.

Hell, the Muslims fire their AK's into the air all the time. Do you realize what precision it would take to get the bullet back down where you're group is? Even if you shot the bullet straight up the winds would be a real factor. Without a computer and current weather conditions it would be nearly imposible.

"I can remember when Americans roared like lions for liberty, now they bleat like sheep for security" - Norman Vincent Peale

Buddy of mine was a cop years ago, stopped a car, driver jumped and ran, LEO shouted "stop" and fired a round in the air over the runner, it hit a oak tree limb, bounced back and knocked out the driver's side window. Also had a M79 gunner in RVN shoot a grenade into a bamboo thicket in the dark, slapped it back at us too. Maybe the shot fired by idiot #1 bounced back and killed idiot #2.
rk

While it's not [b]safe[/b] to discharge a weapon into the air, it is generally safer than discharging it into the ground. A richochet will be moving a lot faster than a bullet falling at terminal velocity.

From the Expedient Liberal Dictionary:

People (n) : The National Guard.
Bear (v) : To carry in an unloaded state while duck hunting.

I think it was in the early 80s that a company
in the Guyanas in South America fired a large
projectile straight up.
It never returned. It was the first one to
ever be shot into space. I think Ill do a search for that old article. Probably somebody
here remembers that shot.